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Free Agency Awaits David West

The 2013 free agency class will be headlined by All-Stars Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum next summer, but the crop figures to be a deep group at every position well beyond the headliners.

One of the players expected to attract plenty of attention from executives around the league in free agency is Indiana Pacers forward David West. The veteran is in the last year of his contract, a two-year $20 million deal, signed in December 2011. The last time West was in this position he was in the process of recovering from a torn left ACL suffered at the end of the 2011 campaign.

One of West’s primary objectives this season is to prove to everyone his knee is fully recovered after working his way back most of last season.

“I feel like I’m in pretty good shape as far as my health” West said to HOOPSWORLD. “I feel one hundred times better than last year just coming off the knee surgery.”

West, 32, is at the age where most frontcourt players start to decline but the veteran has been hot to start the season averaging 16.7 points and 8.6 rebounds through the Pacers’ first seven games.

Given his age and recent knee injury West knows the microscope is focused on his game more than ever, but he says he won’t let his uncertain future become a distraction.

“I’m just trying to have a productive year,” West said regarding his goal headed into free agency. “I don’t really base my play on what’s out there looming. I just try to go out do my job and stay focused on the moment and what we have to do to right now.”

The Pacers already have $57 million in committed salary on the books for the 2013-14 season, after new deals for Roy Hibbert, Ian Mahinmi and Gerald Green were reached this past summer. Emerging forward Paul George could potentially test the market at the end of the 2014-15 campaign as well, making the need for the small market Pacers to keep an eye on expenses on the top of their agenda.

While West wants to be a Pacer long term he acknowledges there could be financial challenges, which stand in the way. For now West wants to concentrate on winning games, believing the rest will play itself out at the appropriate time.

“It’s one of those situations,” West said when asked if he wanted to remain in Indiana long term. “My main objective is to try to win [here]. I feel like this group has an opportunity to do that. Obviously with Danny [Granger] out it changes and makes things a little more difficult for us this year, but again we feel like with the group that we have and with Danny at full strength we can compete.”

The Pacers will be without the services of former All-Star and leading scorer Danny Granger for the next three months as he nurses a knee injury. Indiana will need West’s production during this time to stay in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff mix.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

I concerly hope the Pacers re-sign him. He's been our only constant.

He's a great leader for this young team. The 2 year contract which he signed was a short contract to test his knee (which to me seems fine now). Given his age, I'd be happy if we gave him $35-$40 million over 3 years.

"So, which one of you guys is going to come in second?" - Larry Bird before the 3 point contest. He won.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

Pacers need to trade him, get something of value before losing him for nothing, Im expecting that at some point the Pacers learn their leason, or they can get burn again if they feel like it.

I agree with you on this sort of thing for once. Pacers can't stand pat on this front court. I would move one of Hibbert or West this season. Depending on who can bring higher return. Sucks to say that because I like both of them, but the fact is we're sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment when it comes to how to move forward. We still need to make moves, and while PG will never be a superstar he is too damn versatile IMO to just toss away unless someone offers you a huge package for him, but I just don't see that happening. So West or Hibbert seems to be the best place to bring in some assets. I know that opinion is not going to be incredibly popular, but I think it's pretty true about the team right now unless Roy starts scoring 15 a night at a 50% shooting clip all of a sudden.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

I agree with you on this sort of thing for once. Pacers can't stand pat on this front court. I would move one of Hibbert or West this season. Depending on who can bring higher return. Sucks to say that because I like both of them, but the fact is we're sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment when it comes to how to move forward. We still need to make moves, and while PG will never be a superstar he is too damn versatile IMO to just toss away unless someone offers you a huge package for him, but I just don't see that happening. So West or Hibbert seems to be the best place to bring in some assets. I know that opinion is not going to be incredibly popular, but I think it's pretty true about the team right now unless Roy starts scoring 15 a night at a 50% shooting clip all of a sudden.

Roy is not going anywhere, Danny doesn't have any value, Hill is not going anywhere, Paul George is not going anywhere, at this point the Pacers need to realize that without Danny they are not going anywhere, not only that but I don't think we can expect Danny to be 100% healthy ever again(like Dunleavy).

The Pacers only asset is West, he is not part of the future and the Pacers are probably going lose him for nothing, trade him to a team that feels like they need one more piece to compete and try to get one or two young pieces plus picks for the future, at some point the Pacers front office has to do what is best for the franchise.

Here are some teams that could probably trade for West: Houston, Atlanta, SA, OKC, Boston, Denver, GS, maybe more teams.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

I agree with you on this sort of thing for once. Pacers can't stand pat on this front court. I would move one of Hibbert or West this season. Depending on who can bring higher return. Sucks to say that because I like both of them, but the fact is we're sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment when it comes to how to move forward. We still need to make moves, and while PG will never be a superstar he is too damn versatile IMO to just toss away unless someone offers you a huge package for him, but I just don't see that happening. So West or Hibbert seems to be the best place to bring in some assets. I know that opinion is not going to be incredibly popular, but I think it's pretty true about the team right now unless Roy starts scoring 15 a night at a 50% shooting clip all of a sudden.

Roy is in a slump. I'm not that worried about it. He will come out of it.

I would find it hard to believe that the P's would trade Roy after signing him to a big contract. But stranger things have happened.

I agree about West. He is going to want big bucks if he keeps up this production. And the Pacers are going to be hard pressed to shell out that kind of money and still keep PG. On the other hand, if the team trades him this offseason, then it severely inhibits their ability to compete in the East. If they let the season ride, then they lose West most likely.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

He's making $10 million per Season now....he's going to demand more (and most likely it)

Unless you think West is an undeniable go-to guy that you can count on for 70+ games per year, you can't pay him that much money. He's a #2 or #3 player... you can't give him $11-12M a year. And we won't.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

Unless you think West is an undeniable go-to guy that you can count on for 70+ games per year, you can't pay him that much money. He's a #2 or #3 player... you can't give him $11-12M a year. And we won't.

I do think all of that about him actually, but I agree that 12 million will be too much for us to pay. Someone else will though, and that sucks. West is my favorite player to watch right now.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

I do think all of that about him actually, but I agree that 12 million will be too much for us to pay. Someone else will though, and that sucks. West is my favorite player to watch right now.

The question is who is willing to pay that? If it is the Wizards I am betting he will take 9 or 10 million to stay here and a chance for a championship. If it is another contender, well then we might be screwed.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

He's making $10 million per Season now....he's going to demand more (and most likely it)

He's going to get 10 because he's worth 10 (at least). If you can get a "we gave you trust" deal at 3 for 32 that would be nice, and money better spent than "you've got to" Hibbert money.

You can pay Roy, Hill, Paul, West and Danny about the same as Miami is paying the big 3 plus 2 other starters. The big 3 will make 56m next year. Roy, Hill and Danny will be making 36 which leaves you 10m each to give to Paul and West to have 5 starters vs the Miami 3. It's very reasonable.

Danny's deal ends next year and Paul's rookie deal technically goes through next season, so you might be seeing a reduction in Danny's money (depending on this year and next) that offsets some of that Paul increase.

Bottom line - just the savings on the Pacers big 3 vs Miami's big 3, even if you make a 3rd Pacer a 14m guy, still saves you enough in total (4m x 3 guys) to pay West as a bonus to offset the talent difference.

The whole point in money is to be able to pay guys that produce. Right now West is the best non-rookie investment the Pacers have going. The 28m in Hibbert/Danny is what hurts them. So you want to re-up West as much as you possibly can. 14-15m, probably outside their limit unless they were to deal Danny, but 10-11 for 3 more years is achievable.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

You can pay Roy, Hill, Paul, West and Danny about the same as Miami is paying the big 3 plus 2 other starters. The big 3 will make 56m next year. Roy, Hill and Danny will be making 36 which leaves you 10m each to give to Paul and West to have 5 starters vs the Miami 3. It's very reasonable.

The problem though is that Miami is deep in the tax, so it's not a fair comparison. Miami is at $84m this year whereas the Pacers are realistically looking at $70m+ as a hard cap.

The whole point in money is to be able to pay guys that produce. Right now West is the best non-rookie investment the Pacers have going. The 28m in Hibbert/Danny is what hurts them. So you want to re-up West as much as you possibly can. 14-15m, probably outside their limit unless they were to deal Danny, but 10-11 for 3 more years is achievable.

I agree with this though, if it comes down to a choice between West and Granger for who gets the $10m+ contract, I'd pick West too.

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Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

There will be several PF options in FA next summer (Jefferson, Milsap, Josh Smith, West, Landry, etc), so that should drive the price down somewhat. I would hope we could get West or Landry for 3 years 25M and resign Hansbrough as a backup for 3-4M per season. Smith, Milsap, and Jefferson will cost more. We have plenty of room under the cap next summer to spend that kind of money, the issue is the following year when both Granger and PG are entering free agency. Next summer, if we invest 12M/yr for both the starting and backup PF positions, we are at $44M without resigning Granger, PG, Stephenson, a backup PG, and rounding out the roster with 3-4 additional players. Let's assume Stephenson, a good backup PG, and the remaining roster players cost $8M/yr, we are at $52M or only $20M under the luxury tax with no starting wings. PG will cost us $12M + per year, which means either Danny will take a paycut to $8M or less or we look elsewhere.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

Question... Do we hold Bird rights to DWest?? We only signed him to a two year deal, and I thought that we had to have him signed for a 3 year deal to get his Bird rights... Any of you CBA experts able verify or deny this?? If we do not hold Bird rights on him, then we have to trade him by the deadline this year, IMO.

xIndyFan explained it in the previous page. We have Early Bird rights but not full Bird rights. Early Bird rights is more than enough in West's case though - allows a contract starting at 175% of old contract.

Again West hot start should give the Pacers a nice trade ship, some "want to win now team" should be able to give something nice back in return, keeping West is going to be as beneficiary as keeping Foster and letting him retire as a Pacers, in other words not beneficiary at all.

I'm not sure that West will fetch as much as you seem to think. The teams that can most use him (SA, Boston) have limited assets. OKC, Denver, GS are all at luxury tax level or higher, so trading for West is likely to be a rental for them. Houston and Atlanta both have big FA plans next year, so will probably regard West as a rental as well.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

xIndyFan explained it in the previous page. We have Early Bird rights but not full Bird rights. Early Bird rights is more than enough in West's case though - allows a contract starting at 175% of old contract.

I'm not sure that West will fetch as much as you seem to think. The teams that can most use him (SA, Boston) have limited assets. OKC, Denver, GS are all at luxury tax level or higher, so trading for West is likely to be a rental for them. Houston and Atlanta both have big FA plans next year, so will probably regard West as a rental as well.

Even as I rental I wouldn't be surprised that a team gives the Pacers some assets, OKC makes sense because they need somebody that can score inside and they also need to move Perkins, Perkins+asset for West could be done I think, now I don't know how that affects the Pacers cap though.

Edit: Oh and they need to make sure to ad Ian or Green on the trade too.

Re: Free Agency Awaits David West

If you trade one you trade West as he is older. In the long term you are more likely to get a better return than on Hibbert. It seems to me West is at a point in his career where I think he would take less to stay with or go to a championship contender than a non-contender, which could bode well for us re-signing him.

I forget.....even as a UFA.....are the Pacers allowed to go over the Salary Cap to sign West?

I know that as a RFA...the Pacers can go over the SalaryCap to sign their own RFAs...but I don't know if the same applies to UFAs.

BTW....if there is any Player that would likely be traded before the February 2012-2013 Trade deadline....my $$$ is on the older Hansbrough.....not West. Also...IMHO...I think that Granger will likely be moved in the 2013-2014 offseason.

Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

This is David West, he is the Honey Badger, West just doesn't give a *****....he's pretty bad *ss cuz he has no regard for any other Player or Team whatsoever.